Close-Up

Name: Close-Up
Genre: Biography, Crime, Drama, Classic
Released: 1990
Duration: 98 min
Cast: Hossain Sabzian, Abolfazl Ahankhah, Mehrdad Ahankhah, Nayer Mohseni Zonoozi, Ahmad Reza Moayed Mohseni

Abbas Kiarostami19901h 38mBiography, Crime, Drama, Classic

Why we chose it

When Kiarostami heard about a poor Iranian film lover on trial for passing himself off as the famous director Makhmalbaf, he dropped everything to film it. Everyone plays themselves, yet it’s far more than a courtroom documentary. There’s no other story about loving cinema quite this complicated.

Synopsis

Hossain Sabzian is poor and loves cinema more than anything. On a Tehran bus, a woman asks about the screenplay in his hands, and on impulse he claims he wrote it. She takes him home and introduces him to the whole family, and before long Sabzian is pacing their rooms, framing shots and promising the sons parts in his new film.